


Doomed

by Miss_Murdered



Category: Gundam Wing
Genre: Angst, M/M, everything sucks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 18:06:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16224476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Murdered/pseuds/Miss_Murdered
Summary: Peace didn't last and Quatre lives in hiding waiting, always waiting, for those brief moments he can feel free again.





	Doomed

**Author's Note:**

> A little something on my favourite old themes...

_So come rain on my parade_  
_'Cause I wanna feel it_  
 _Come shove me over the edge_  
 _'Cause my head is in overdrive_  
 _I'm sorry, but it's too late_  
 _And it's not worth saving_  
  
_So come rain on my parade_  
 _I think we're doomed_  
 _I think we're doomed_  
 _And now there is no way back_

  * **_Doomed – Bring Me the Horizon_  **



It was a chain hotel. The sort of chain hotel that exists in every country and every colony and probably always has. It’s neither expensive nor cheap. It’s only the same – the same royal blue bedding, the same picture of the sea, the same table and chair configuration. They are located in central areas so that usually the windows are noise-proofed due to traffic and only open far enough for a light breeze to filter into the room. They are comfortable in a clinical way. Almost like a hospital. They are not supposed to be stayed in for more than a night.

Quatre wouldn’t have stayed in a place like this in his previous life. He would’ve stayed in a Winner owned apartment or palace or even at a five star resort or hotel. Yet here he was, walking around the box of a room as he waited, his nerves and adrenalin hard to contain in the dull white walls and the royal blue thin carpet underfoot.

He paused at the window looking out at the city streets below. There were shops nearby, restaurants and theatres and bars. It was a thriving place. There was nightlife. Yet Quatre felt so removed from it despite being behind a thin pane of glass. He wouldn’t look right for the trendy clubs. Not now. Not when he needs to look as different to the “poster boy” he had been.

That had been Duo’s nickname for him. Or one of many. “Poster boy” had suited Quatre’s immediate post-war role. He invested heavily in charitable projects. He took part in peace summits and went to conferences and offered to invest in companies that focused on re-building the war ravaged world. He did interviews on talk shows. He was charming. Young and rich. That had been his role. Or at least it had been.

He wasn’t the poster boy now. His blond hair was no longer the bright blond of his youth and Quatre ran his fingers through the unkempt mess of brown as he gathered it into a knot at the back of his head. It wasn’t neat yet Quatre didn’t care. There were no cameras anymore. Though now he wouldn’t want them anyway. He spent his life avoiding facial recognition and surveillance cameras. The beard helped, as did the darker longer hair, and he wore sunglasses and hoodies as another measure. He was sure that if one camera got his face _exactly_ right so that it could be scanned fully, he would be found. But it had not happened yet.

So far he had been lucky.

Lucky he supposed was a funny word. Lucky meant he wasn’t dead or in prison. He knew plenty of people in those positions. There was a gravestone for Une. There was prison for Zechs. After all, they couldn’t quite kill a Peacecraft despite the silencing of Relena. He could have done like Relena -become a puppet and try to make some changes within the new regime. Yet Quatre couldn’t have with good conscience. So he did what he had to. He disappeared and tried to find a way to fight. It was ineffectual but it was something. Even though it meant he had to watch Adriana, the most sympathetic sister to the new Earth Sphere Foundation Front, morph Winner Inc. into something that would make their father turn in his grave. But all he could do was watch. So damn powerless.

Quatre had been the best placed former Gundam pilot to stop the ESFF. But that had been no advantage.  Disgraced and helpless, Quatre had exited the dangerous political sphere in order to survive. There had been too many attempted assignation attempts and they had only increased over the years. Quatre was too visible, too symbolic and too dangerous to the regime to survive in the spotlight. So he had retreated until a new phase of the battle began.

Yet that phase had not happened.

Instead, Quatre had spent years in exile with nothing to show for it. At least the other’s had been able to find insurgent groups and plot rebellions. Quatre had been left to hide and disguise himself. And wait.

Just as he was waiting now.

Quatre paced the small room, anxiety in his every move as he waited for his visitor. This had been planned, so long ago, and Quatre had kept the time and date of the meeting on a scrap of paper in his jeans pocket. They did not have cell phones or comm channels anymore. There was no way of knowing if between the last meeting and this that anything had happened. Quatre only presumed that the capture of a former Gundam pilot would make the news and so he was where he was meant to be on the date that had been planned. He reached for that piece of paper, unfolding it in his fingertips so that he could look at the careful script. It was all he had. A small square of lined paper and a cheap chain hotel room.

Quatre found the minutes stretch into hours and he found his anxiety levels rising. He tried to watch something on the dated television, a news channel seeming the best option but that was only depressing and filled him with yet more concern. Turning the channel left few other options and he ended up turning to the children’s channel, bright and colourful cartoons playing being more soothing than anything else he could find. He lay on the bed and listened to the cheerful characters and songs as he stared up at the ceiling and tried to ignore the feeling in his stomach.

Making tea was another distraction but the cheap tea left in this type of hotel room was quite lacking and Quatre almost wished he hadn’t bothered as it didn’t taste of much so he left it on the side to cool, his unseeing gaze watching the steam rise into the air. Waiting was killing him. Not knowing was killing him. Yet he could do nothing. He’d always been useless.

Eventually, sleep seemed the only option, exhaustion finally overcoming him. Yet it wasn’t rest. Quatre never felt rested. Instead, he felt constantly ill at ease and ready for the world to burn. He was surprised it hadn’t yet. Someone, somewhere was probably developing something worse than Quatre could even imagine and that something would end it all.

Quatre never truly slept well. He dozed, he nodded off and sometimes he just waited immobile on an uncomfortable mattress. Yet he was asleep, warm, and he felt safe. Too safe. Quatre started from his sleep, reaching for a weapon yet he stopped short of getting the gun from underneath his pillow as there, close enough for Quatre to feel his breath and the warmth of his skin, was Heero Yuy.

He almost laughed, a smile crossing his face as he was once again amazed how Heero could sneak into his room without him realising. There were so very few people who could be so silent, so careful and so stealthy that Quatre wouldn’t stir and they had all been former Gundam pilots. As he relaxed back into the pillow, he closed his eyes and moved closer to Heero’s body, seeking out comfort and warmth as he always had. Heero shifted, allowing Quatre closer and their legs and arms tangled, and breathing began to sync into a slow and steady rhythm.

Quatre thought how long it had been since he had this. Until he felt this. Yet despite the feeling of safety, Quatre knew it was an illusion. It wasn’t like after the war, when they had been young, when the world had been hopeful and everything lay ahead of them. When Quatre had been the poster boy and Heero had been the saviour. It was different.

They slept and when Quatre finally woke up, he felt more refreshed than he had for some time. He noted that he was alone in the bed yet he heard the steady fall of the shower water and figured out where Heero had gone. He also noticed the cup of tea on the table, steaming, waiting for him. A battered box was beside it showing Quatre it wasn’t the cheap tea that the hotel supplied.

Smiling, grabbed the tea as Heero re-appeared from the shower, steam following in his wake. He scanned Heero’s body, taking in injuries and whether there was another trauma that occurred since there last meeting. Quatre wasn’t sure. There were too many scars now.

“I couldn’t bring any loose leaf tea,” Heero said with a shrug.

Quatre smiled. “This is perfect.”

For a moment it was perfect. They were in a hotel room, just them, and Heero was as gorgeous as he ever had been and there was the aromatic scent on the air. Yet it was different. Heero looked different, his shaven head making his eyes seem even more intense and there were clearly new scars. And Quatre wasn’t the poster boy. In fact, he had fallen asleep in yesterday’s clothes and his chin was covered in stubble and he was nothing like he had been. Neither of them were. Too much had happened.

With one more swig of his tea, Quatre closed his eyes and imagined another life where the world had not gone to hell. But as he opened them again, that imagined life faded once again to be replaced by the stark reality. Heero wasn’t naked for a round of intense sex. Instead, he was dressing once again, their only time together being a night wrapped around one another, rather than any romance.

“What do I need to know?”

Heero took a deep breath as he sat beside Quatre on the bed. “No one’s dead.”

“I guessed,” Quatre said softly, his head leaning on Heero’s shoulder.

If one of them had died, it would’ve been lauded as a success. As some great victory in the war against the rebellions that they could not quite quash. It was the only thing that kept him going, kept him from despair and let him live in hiding in the shadows without too much guilt. That they were still out there, that they were still doing _something_ even if he couldn’t.

“Wufei’s in deep cover . Duo and Trowa went to the colonies. I’ve not heard from them for a while.”

Quatre nodded. “What else?”

Heero sighed and then spoke, his voice monotone as he spoke of all the losses, the deaths, the new sanctions and the battles everyone they knew were engaged in. As he listened, Quatre didn’t say anything and no tears fell. There were no emotions left, or at least not as they had been. He was raw and ragged, his instincts honed for survival and moving on. His old sentiment seemed long gone. And once Heero had finished, they sat in silence, the sound of a hairdryer from another room and the traffic from outside.

“So we’re doomed?” Quatre said, finally, breaking the silence.

A hand reached for Quatre’s, threading their fingers together, and lips brushed over his cheek. “Not yet. There’s hope.”

“Hope, really, Heero?”

“We’re still here.”

Quatre wanted to protest – that they were still alive but were they _really_ living. Yet Heero silenced those protests with lips, with tongue and the slightest hint of teeth. And when they parted, a little breathless, Quatre could feel the tear on his cheek and the hand that brushed it away.

“We’re not doomed yet. We just have to keep going.”

They were Heero’s parting words left to linger with a final press of lips. And alone in the chain hotel room, Quatre thought how he’d been so ineffectual, how he’d hidden and survived and how he wouldn’t do it anymore.

He packed up the hotel room and as he did he found Heero’s note for the next meeting. Quatre smiled at it sadly, rubbed his thumb over the numbers as though they brought him closer to a lost version of their future. The future where the world wasn’t in ruin and they were still heroes.

“I’m sorry, Heero. We are doomed,” he said softly.

Quatre crumpled the piece of paper, threw it down the toilet and flushed it away. He wouldn’t need it. He’d no longer hide. He’d no longer survive. He would fight and if that meant he was doomed then so be it.


End file.
